"Are you still of opinion that he merits death?"
"Yes, yes," the men exclaimed, unanimously.
"Prisoner," Major Tempe said, "you have heard your sentence. You are a convicted traitor--convicted of having betrayed your country, convicted of having sold the blood of your countrymen. I give you five minutes to ask that pardon, of God, which you cannot obtain from man."
The miserable wretch gave a cry of terror, and fell on his knees; and would have crawled towards his judge, to beg for mercy, had not his guard restrained him. For the next five minutes, the forest rang with alternate cries, entreaties, threats, and curses--so horrible that the four boys, and several of the younger men, put their hands to their ears and walked away, so as not to see or hear the terrible punishment. At the end of that time there was a brief struggle, and then a deep silence; and the body of the traitor swung from a branch of one of the trees, with a paper pinned on his breast:
"So perish all traitors."
"Louis Duburg," Major Tempe said, "take this paper, with 'Those who seek a traitor will find him here,' and fasten it to a tree; so that it may be seen at the point where this path turned from the road."
Louis took it, and ran off. In a quarter of an hour, when he returned, he found the company drawn up in readiness to march. He fell in at once, and the troop moved off; leaving behind them the smoldering fire, and the white figure swinging near it.
[Chapter 9]: A Desperate Fight.
Daylight was just breaking, when Major Tempe marched with his men into Marmontier; at which place the other three companies had arrived, the night previously. It was a large village--the chief place of its canton--and the corps were most hospitably received by the inhabitants. Had they arrived the evening before, it would have been impossible to provide them all with beds; and they would have been obliged, like the majority of their comrades, to sleep on straw in the schoolroom. The inhabitants, however, were up and about, very shortly after the arrival of Major Tempe's command; and his men were soon provided for, in the beds which they had left.
Beds were now a luxury, indeed, as the corps had not slept in them since they had been quartered at Baccarat, two nights before their first encounter with the Prussians, near Blamont. It was with great unwillingness, then, that they turned out when the bugle sounded, at two o'clock in the afternoon. They partook of a hearty meal--provided by the people upon whom they were quartered--and an hour later the whole corps marched out towards Wasselonne, a small town situated on the Breuche; a little river which, winding round by Molsheim, falls into the Rhine at Strasburg. A branch line of railroad terminates at this place.